Creative uses for avocados
by irisdouglasiana
Summary: The delicious epilogue to "The world was calling her name." Featuring much less angst and many more avocados.
**1\. How it all began**

As they drive away from Whitney Frost's house, Peggy holds up the avocado Daniel gave her and inspects it closely. "How is one supposed to eat this, anyway?"

He shoots her an incredulous look. "You've never had an avocado before?"

"I've been in California for less than two weeks, Daniel. And they don't exactly grow them in London. Or New York, for that matter."

He nods. "Well, you peel it like an orange and just bite into it. You have to be careful to not bite the pit, or you might chip a tooth."

Seems reasonable. "That's all?"

"Yep."

* * *

Peggy remembers the avocado a few days later. She peels off the outer layer as Daniel suggested, though she begins to suspect that something is amiss when the mushy green flesh starts getting all over her hands. Still, it's too late to turn back and she goes ahead and bites in, just as Ana Jarvis walks through the door. Ana stops in her tracks and gives Peggy a strange look.

After chewing and swallowing—the avocado has an odd smooth texture, nothing like any fruit she's ever tasted, but it's not half bad—Peggy says, "This isn't how you're supposed to eat an avocado."

Ana shakes her head. "No, Miss Carter. Who told you that?"

"Oh, just someone who is going to get an avocado in the face later."

 _Well, well, Chief Sousa. If that's how you want to play…_

 **2\. Collateral damage**

Since Peggy has never had a taco, Jarvis decides it must be taco night. Somehow, in addition to all his other duties, Jarvis has found the time to scope out the best taquerias in Los Angeles. He takes Daniel to go pick up the tacos (evidently a two-man job) while Ana and Peggy prepare the guacamole.

Guacamole, as Peggy learns, is just mashed avocado with salt and lemon juice. As she's mashing the avocados, a terrible idea occurs to her. "Ana," she asks, "Does Howard grow any chili peppers?"

Ana raises her eyebrows. "Mr. Stark is quite fond of peppers. In fact, he has a small garden out back. May I ask why?"

"Just wanted to spice it up a little bit. Warn Mr. Jarvis, but quietly," Peggy says as she slips out back. She doesn't know much about peppers, so she picks half a dozen small green ones. She figures that should be enough.

Back in the kitchen, Ana watches Peggy as she slices up the peppers. "Miss Carter," she says disapprovingly, hands on her hips.

"Please, Ana," Peggy says. "Just this once."

She really thinks Ana might shoot her down, but instead Ana just turns back to her cutting board. "Why don't you put the guacamole in two bowls?"

"Oh! Good idea." Peggy puts all the sliced up peppers in one bowl and stirs them in just as Jarvis and Daniel walk through the door, tacos in hand. It smells delicious and she almost starts drooling.

She greets Daniel with a little kiss as they settle down around the table. "Ana taught me the _proper_ way to cut up an avocado," she says sweetly. "You cut lengthwise all the way around, remove the pit with the knife, and then scoop the rest out with a spoon."

He actually manages to keep a straight face. "That's great, Peg."

 _Bastard!_ "Try my guacamole?" She pushes the bowl towards him.

Daniel tears off a piece of a tortilla and samples the guacamole. She watches his face closely, but he just nods in approval. "It's very good."

Peggy looks up in time to see Mr. Jarvis eat a spoonful of guacamole from the other bowl. "No, wait—"

In seconds, Jarvis's face turns very, very red. He hastily excuses himself from the table and runs for the bathroom, Ana not far behind him.

Daniel gives her a pointed look.

"How odd," Peggy says weakly.

* * *

Despite making her apologies to the Jarvises, Peggy is nevertheless banned from their kitchen. Even worse, her hands and face start burning and itching intolerably. Washing her hands thoroughly with cold water helps a little bit, but not much.

"Serves you right," Daniel says.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I see how it is, Carter." He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. "Two can play this game."

 _Bloody hell…_

 **3\. Coach Sousa**

Howard has so many avocado trees in his orchard that they can't possibly eat them all. They've been putting avocados in salads, in sandwiches, and with eggs. Ana's made ten different variations on guacamole and Jarvis made avocado muffins that came out an unappetizing shade of green. All of them are sick of avocados. It's not even late in the season and already there are dozens of them strewn all over the ground in the orchard, just waiting to be stepped on. The next crop is still growing overhead.

Howard's first solution is avocado golf, except Jarvis struggles to get the avocados to rest properly on the tee, and then the irregular shape and large size means that they don't travel far anyway. It is, however, rather entertaining to watch from the sidelines: Peggy and Daniel enjoy avocado ice cream on the porch and call out unhelpful advice.

"Fetch me my baseball bat, Jarvis," Howard declares after a few unsuccessful rounds. "Golf is for sissies."

Avocado baseball doesn't seem to be Howard's sport either. He keeps swinging and missing even with Jarvis's easy underhand toss. "You Brits can't throw correctly," he whines. "Sousa! You're a real American. Get over here."

Peggy puts a hand on Daniel's arm. "Don't feel obligated."

"No, not at all," he says, getting to his feet. He heads down to the yard and leans his crutch against a tree before taking over for Jarvis, who seems entirely happy to join Peggy for ice cream. Daniel shifts his balance a couple times until he finds a position he seems comfortable with. Peggy watches with interest as his demeanor suddenly changes. She's never seen such an intense look on his face as he delivers the fastball. His movement is jerky and the avocado goes high (Howard misses, of course), but he obviously knows what he's doing.

"Now _that's_ a real pitch!" Howard crows. "Again!"

Daniel looks over at Peggy and grins, and her heart beats a little faster. She can't help but smile back.

"I've never seen Chief Sousa look quite so happy," Jarvis remarks.

Peggy feels an odd surge of pride as she watches Daniel pitch. He's clearly improving with practice, though Howard still hasn't managed to hit a single avocado.

Finally, Howard lowers the bat. "Your turn, Peggy," he calls out, and she can't refuse after seeing the smile on Daniel's face.

"I've never played," she says as she takes the bat from Howard and tries to mimic his stance. Daniel shakes his head and limps over to them so he can reposition her arms. "Thank you, Coach Sousa."

"I like the sound of that," he laughs as he steps back, pushing up his sleeves and preparing for the next pitch.

Peggy swings—and misses. And misses again. And again. On the fourth attempt, she hits a glancing blow and the avocado bounces off the bat and nearly hits Howard in the head. "Jeez, Peggy! Are you trying to kill me? Switch places with Sousa," Howard demands.

"Maybe stand out of the way," Peggy suggests as she passes the bat on to Daniel. Howard beats a hasty retreat back to the porch.

Daniel grips the bat with practiced expertise. He adjusts his position a few times, followed by some practice swings. "Ready?" Peggy asks. The determined look in his eyes is all the answer she needs, and she makes her first pitch.

He misses the first time and nearly loses his balance, but he catches himself and shifts his weight. He misses the second time as well, though he doesn't stumble.

On the third try, the bat and avocado connect with a solid whack, spraying both Daniel and Peggy—but mostly Peggy—with bits of fruit. Up on the porch, Jarvis and Howard are applauding, but it's the huge smile on Daniel's face that pleases her the most.

She walks over and kisses him. "Was it your plan all along to splatter me with avocado?"

"It's not my fault you put yourself in the line of fire."

"This is unfair, Coach. I didn't know I was up against a professional."

He grins at her. "Then you'll just have to get me back, won't you?"

 _Well. You asked for it…_

 **4\. Explosive dehiscence**

"Genetic engineering is the future, Peggy," Howard says as he carefully squeezes a couple drops of a bright green substance into a test tube. "The possibilities are limitless. Improved pest resistance? Longer shelf life? Brussel sprouts that are less bitter than my parents' divorce? The solution to world hunger is right here."

"Quite the hero you are. I imagine the profit margins don't hurt, either. What do Brussel sprouts have to do with your parents' divorce?"

"That's personal, Peg." He sets the test tube down and tilts his head. "To the greenhouse."

Howard's greenhouse is impressive, but he leads her out back to the shaded area where he keeps his grafting experiments. He plucks an avocado off of one of his grafts and splits it open expertly with his knife. The pit is barely larger than a quarter.

" _Persea americana_. Fantastic fruit, but the pit is too damn big. With the reduced pit, you get more bang for your buck. It'll be ready to go into mass production once we work out a minor bug."

"What is the bug?" Peggy asks as she takes the avocado from Howard and examines the pit.

"Explosive dehiscence. It's a ripening issue. Once the fruit turns overripe, the whole thing goes boom! Just a little explosion, I mean, but it's kind of messy. Jarvis won't let me bring them in the house anymore."

She raises an eyebrow. "May I have one?"

"For you, Peg? You can have ten."

* * *

She takes all the necessary precautions, wrapping the almost-overripe avocado in newspaper and putting it inside another bag before sticking it in her purse. Howard picked it out himself that morning and gave it a little squeeze ("Oh yeah, she's just about ready to blow"), so there's no time to waste. She unwraps her present before walking into Daniel's office and casually tossing it to him.

He eyes it warily. "What's this about?"

"Just an avocado," she shrugs, before launching into a theory about the new case they're working on. He sets the avocado down on the corner of his desk, distracted. _Perfect._

Throughout the day, Peggy keeps glancing over at his office, waiting for something to happen. Daniel answers the phone, agents go in and out of the office, lunch comes and goes. Nothing. When Daniel has to leave for a mid-afternoon meeting, she strolls into his office casually and picks up the avocado to take a closer look. Maybe this one is defective, or Howard is playing some sort of joke on her. Oh well. Sometimes an avocado is just an avocado. Then Peggy starts to think that it wasn't such a great idea for a prank after all; she pictures Daniel getting down on his bad knee to wipe avocado off the floor and she feels preemptively guilty.

As she's about to take it back to her desk, she hears a soft _pop_ , and suddenly she's covered in avocado from head to toe. That's of course when Daniel comes back in to see her standing there empty handed, avocado splattered over _everything_ —floor, desk, window, but mostly Peggy. He stares at her openmouthed. "Do I even want to know?"

"Sorry. Bad idea. I'll clean it up," she apologizes.

Daniel closes the door behind him and limps over to her, careful to step over the bits of peel and fruit on the floor. He runs a finger along Peggy's avocado-splattered arm and scoops a piece of it onto her nose. "You missed a spot."

She laughs and smears a little on his nose. "Truce?"

"Truce."

 **5\. The Heist**

"I need your help, Peggy," Howard says over the phone.

"Howard, you know how much I love to hear those words from you."

"Sousa's rubbing off on you, isn't he? Bad influence," he remarks. "So, uh. You remember my little avocado experiment I showed you a few weeks ago?"

"Indeed." Her dress had been a total loss and it had taken hours of scrubbing to get Daniel's office clean.

"Yeah, so…the other day, I was at an avocado growers' conference. I might have mentioned my experiment to some of the other attendees."

"'Mentioned'? By which you mean 'boasted', perhaps? 'Bragged?'"

"I…may have overstated a few things," Howard says. "You don't need to rub it in. Anyway, this afternoon I went out to check on things, and my grafts were gone! All of them!"

"We'll be right over," Peggy sighs, rubbing her temples as she gets up to tell Daniel. They'd had a nice, blissfully avocado-free date planned for that night. So much for that.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Daniel is rather peeved as Howard walks them through the shaded area where he had been keeping the grafts. "Listen, the SSR is not your personal detective service. Maybe you wouldn't keep getting robbed if you just hired some security guards. Jarvis doesn't count."

"You don't have to insult my butler like that," Howard says in an aggrieved tone.

"Actually, Chief Sousa is entirely right," Jarvis pipes up.

"Nobody asked you, Jarvis," Howard snipes. "Look, I know to you it's just a bunch of trees, but the fate of the avocado industry is at stake here. Think about it: the thief puts my variety out on the market without knowing about the bug. Suddenly, you've got exploding avocados in grocery stores all across the state. There goes consumer confidence! The whole industry comes crashing down."

Peggy sighs. "Can we get back to the task at hand, please? How many plants are missing, Howard? We need to know the last time you saw them, if you noticed anything unusual between then and now, and a list of the conference attendees."

According to Howard, he's missing thirty plants in one-gallon pots. Daniel and Peggy exchange looks. "They would have needed a truck to get them out of here," Daniel observes. "And it would've taken time. Did you have any visitors yesterday?"

"The veterinarian came," Jarvis recalls. "Buddy is doing poorly." He doesn't sound too broken up about it.

"Buddy?" Peggy asks.

"My koala," Howard snaps.

"At any rate, I went with Dr. Shaw to see Buddy, while Dr. Shaw's new assistant, Marla…comforted Mr. Stark."

"How long were they here?" Daniel asks.

"About an hour."

"Enough time to steal a couple dozen plants," Peggy remarks. "I imagine they had an extra person or two hiding in the back of the truck."

Daniel takes a seat on a bench, sighing. Then he glances down at his feet. "Hey, I think I found one," he says, using the tip of his crutch to nudge at an avocado lying a few feet away.

"Chief Sousa, I wouldn't—" Jarvis begins.

 _Pop._

"—do that if I were you."

Peggy claps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Daniel gives her a pained look as he starts wiping avocado off of his face. "I guess I should've known better."

"Wait!" Howard cries, dashing back into the greenhouse. He comes back out with a stack of petri dishes and a spoon and starts scraping bits of avocado off of Daniel's suit. "In case you don't recover my grafts, I need a sample so I can start over—"

Daniel actually snatches the petri dish out of Howard's hands. "No."

Peggy steps in. "Howard, we will find your avocados. But you owe us." She glances over at Daniel, still trying to get bits of avocado out of his hair, and she remembers the date they had been planning. Nothing that couldn't be rescheduled; just dinner at a nice restaurant in Malibu. But still.

She reaches out and touches Daniel's hand. He looks up with a wry smile, and she knows they're on the same page. "I'll change the reservation to tomorrow," he says. "They'd kick us out of the restaurant if I showed up looking like this."

To Peggy, he looks better than anyone covered in avocado has any right to be. "Yes. Tomorrow, then."

 _And if Howard disrupts_ that _date, he'll be getting his own blasted avocado right in the face…_

* * *

"This might be a problem," Daniel says as they drive around the nursery slowly. There are perhaps hundreds of young avocado trees sitting in one-gallon pots, leaves rustling gently in the breeze. Up until this point, it's the easiest case they've ever had. After an examination of the guest list and a chat with Howard's veterinarian (they didn't even have to make any threats; all it took was Daniel flashing his badge and one look from Peggy to get the man to talk), they tracked Howard's grafts to a nursery west of Malibu. They're confident that Howard's trees ended up here—now they just have to locate them.

"Besides the smaller pits and the, you know, explosions, is there any way to distinguish Howard's avocados from the rest of these?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Peggy says as they pull up to the curb.

"We can't spend all night splitting open avocados to see if they have small pits. Next time Howard does his—what did you call it?— _genetic engineering_ , tell him to make the avocados zebra-striped. Or glow in the dark. Something."

"Just follow my lead," Peggy says, grabbing a clipboard. "Mr. Warren is going to show us which ones they are."

An unassuming man in his fifties answers the door. "Mr. Warren?" Peggy begins in her most authoritative voice, flashing her badge too quickly for him to take a good look. "Officers Carter and Sousa, Department of Agriculture. Are you familiar with the Peruvian stinging psyllid? No? Well, you should be. Very nasty avocado pest; spreads extremely quickly. Even a small number could decimate an orchard this size within, oh…a week, I suppose. The only way to contain it is to burn the entire infected tree. We've tracked down what we believe is the original source in Los Angeles County, but we want to test all the avocado orchards in the area to be sure."

"The original source?" Warren asks.

Daniel's picked up on Peggy's plan. "Yes, we were able to trace it to Howard Stark's orchard. Seems some of the samples he picked up from South America carried the pest."

Warren's managed to maintain a straight face until now, but he blanches at the mention of Howard's name. _Aha._

"—so if we can get a copy of your inventory and a few samples from your nursery, we'll be on our way," Daniel continues. "But I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

Warren hesitates for a moment, but he hands over the inventory and leads them around back to the nursery. Daniel spends a few minutes ostentatiously inspecting the trees and plucking a few avocados while Peggy makes notes on the clipboard. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Warren," she says after a decent interval has passed and Warren's had enough time to really start to sweat. "We'll be in touch."

Back in the car, Daniel says, "I never thought I'd see the day."

"What do you mean?"

"Peggy Carter came up with a plan that doesn't involve punching people."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, it's not too late for that."

Daniel drives them around the back of the nursery and they sneak over to the fence. "Too bad we left the catapult back at the SSR, or I'd come with you," he whispers as he gives Peggy a boost over to the other side. "I'll take the front. Be careful."

"You too." Peggy doubts she'll need it, but she draws her gun anyway as she advances at a cautious pace. It doesn't take long for her to hear rustling noises and the sound of a man grunting as he moves heavy objects. Through the trees, she sees Warren hurriedly picking up one-gallon pots with avocado trees and moving them away from the others. Twenty three, twenty four…

She's just about the move in when she hears a familiar _click_ and a step behind her. "Drop the gun and turn around slowly," a woman says.

Peggy does as she says, raising her hands and pivoting to come face to face with her opponent—a young redheaded woman who wouldn't look out of place at one of Howard's pool parties.

"You must be Marla," Peggy guesses.

The woman barely has time to flinch before Peggy grabs her arm and flips her on her back. She knocks the gun out of her hand and lands a punch in the head for good measure before taking out the handcuffs.

"Peggy?" she hears Daniel call out. He's got Warren in handcuffs already. He frowns as he sees the other woman. "Who's that? What happened?"

"I believe this is Marla, who was posing yesterday as the veterinarian's assistant. I also have a feeling that she's our mastermind. Isn't that right, Marla?" Marla just glares at both of them. "Not ready to talk? Let's take a trip back to the office and see if we can't change your mind."

"Looks like it's time to call in some backup. Stark's picking up his own trees, though. I've learned my lesson. I'm not touching them." Daniel checks his watch. "You know, I did move our dinner reservation to tomorrow, but we can see if they'll still let us in tonight. It's not that late."

Peggy's stomach is rumbling. "No time to waste, then."

* * *

It's one of the few times Peggy's seen Daniel wearing a hat, and she thinks it looks rather good on him. "You should wear hats more often," she tells him as they walk into the restaurant, arm in arm.

"Can I borrow your red hat?" he teases. "I always liked that one."

She pretends to think about it as the waitress leads them to their table. "Well, maybe, but I think red is more my color than yours—oh, this is _unbelievable_."

Howard is seated at one of the round booths next to their table, surrounded by three women. He looks up with a tipsy grin and waves them over. "Peggy! Sousa!" he exclaims. "What a surprise. I want you to meet Marianne, Helen, and…uh, Sandra?"

"Samantha," the blond corrects him, but she doesn't seem terribly offended.

"Of all the restaurants in Los Angeles…" Daniel mutters under his breath.

Peggy puts her hands on her hips. "So this is what you've been doing while we've been running around all day to recover your avocados?"

"Oh right. Thanks for doing that, Peggy. Come on, pull up some chairs," Howard invites them, raising an eyebrow suggestively. "We can make this a sextuple date."

"No," Daniel says with a horrified look, but Peggy just shakes her head and taps Samantha on the shoulder. The blond woman slides out of the booth and Peggy slips in next to Howard. She samples one of the bacon-wrapped dates and then points at the very green soup Howard is eating.

"What is that?" Peggy asks him.

"Avocado gazpacho, but it's terrible."

"How appropriate," Peggy says as she shoves his face into it.

 **6\. Finale**

It's quite late by the time they leave the restaurant, but Peggy's not ready to go back to Howard's mansion. "Your place?" she suggests before she loses her nerve.

A flicker of surprise crosses Daniel's face, and for a moment she thinks he'll say no. "Sure, Peg," he says instead, turning the car around.

Peggy's been to his home a couple times already, but never at this late hour. She doesn't quite know what to do with herself once she's seated at his kitchen table, watching him prepare drinks.

"I've got something else for you," Daniel says as he takes a seat at the table. He pulls an avocado out of his coat pocket and passes it to her. "Don't worry, it's not the exploding kind. Probably."

"Where did you get this from?"

"Warren's orchard. We needed to get some samples to keep our cover, remember?"

"Oh, of course," she says with a laugh. "Shall I peel it and eat it like an orange?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, mimicking her inflection perfectly.

"I do _not_ sound like that."

He grins and raises his voice an octave. "Bloody hell!"

"Why, you—" Peggy gasps, shoving his shoulder a little harder than she had intended. He catches her hand and kisses it.

She grabs him by his jacket and pulls him in for a very long kiss. When they come up for air, she says, "Some gentleman you are. Chief Sousa, you _lied_ to me about avocados and I am still very cross with you."

"Sorry, Peg," he murmurs. "How can I make it up to you?"

"Oh, you're creative, Daniel. I'm sure you'll think of something…"


End file.
